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"We were 18 when we met and fundamentally we are sort of the same. I think the difference is he has a family and a wife and obviously his career is a massive thing, but I think his true nature - it was completely familiar."

The reunion was organised by the Iron Man star who told Stern last year that he was keen to sort things out with his ex.

"You know how life goes, and so many things happen," Downey Jr said in 2015.

"When you're not a kid anymore you go, 'This trip to New York, instead of doing what's required of me, I actually want to take care of some personal business'. I want to check in with someone I shared a big part of my life with and say 'Hi'."

Parker and Downey Jr met up at the Sex and the City star's home and then went out to dinner at a nearby tapas restaurant.

"Seeing her I was like, she's so great and so cool and so funny and in command, and I got to meet her kids and I saw the way that she and [her husband] Matthew lived, and I respect both of them so much," Downey Jr said to Stern last year.

The couple broke up in the early '90s because of Downey Jr's ongoing drug and alcohol addiction and his refusal to change.

"I was so selfish," he said to Parade magazine in 2008.

"I liked to drink, and I had a drug problem, and that didn't jibe with Sarah Jessica, because it is the furthest thing from what she is. She provided me a home and understanding. She tried to help me. She was so miffed when I didn't get my act together."

But Parker told Stern yesterday that she never held a grudge against Downey Jr for his behaviour back in the day.